Shelter 2 Almost Makes Me Hate Cats

“One of the worst sins of modern story-telling is “assumed empathy.” If a movie, book, or video game wants me to care about something, they have to earn my feelings. But all too often creators will rely on common emotional associations as a short-cut for creating actual connections between the audience and a particular character or event. Thus we get stories where it’s assumed that I, as the audience, care about the plight of a particular child, family member, loved one, or even the entire world, simply because all people are supposed to care about children, family members, loved ones, and the entire world. Maybe I’m just callous, but I find that this technique particularly doesn’t work on me, and even tends to produce the opposite effect wherein I start to despise the very thing I was supposed to empathize with.

Apparently cats are an exception to this rule for me. Especially kittens…”